An electroactive optical device is an optical device using the electroactive effect.
The term electroactive effect describes an electric-field induced deformation of a solid or liquid. The deformation can be due to Coulomb forces between electrodes and/or due to the rearrangement of electrical ions and/or multipoles, in particular dipoles, in an electric field. Examples of electroactive materials are: dielectric elastomers, electrostrictive relaxor ferroelectric polymers, piezoelectric polymers (PVDF), liquid crystal elastomers (thermal), ionic polymer-metal composites, and mechano-chemical polymers/gels.
A variety of optical light scramblers have been known.
So as to suppress the speckle noise, the exposure illumination apparatus of JP 07-297111-A that uses laser light includes a diffuser plate that can rotate in its optical system such that the diffuser plate may turn coherent light into incoherent light, for example.
Moreover, the projection display apparatus of JP 06-208089, which uses laser light, includes a movable diffuser plate (that can rotate and/or vibrate etc.) in its optical system such that the diffuser plate may turn coherent light into incoherent light.
WO 2006/098281 (US 2008/198334), for example, describes a reflector element that reflects collimated coherent light and is capable of vibrating in parallel with a direction normal to a reflector surface of said reflector element; and a reflector element driver unit that drives the reflector element in vibrating motion. This device consists on a complicated and expensive to manufacture element driver unit and a reflector element that requires a more complex optical design than a transmissive optical light scrambler.
WO 2007/072411 describes an electroactive camera diaphragm where an aperture is contacted or extended by means of an applied electric field. The aperture is formed by the soft, non-transparent electrodes of the device. The same document describes a device where a lens or ring is displaced in a direction transversal to the plane of the polymer film.